Tombaugh's Star: A Historical Tale of the Cataclysmic Variable TV Corvi

Volume 28 number 1 (2000)

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David H. Levy

Abstract

While doing research for my 1991 biography of Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, I found evidence that he had discovered a probable nova in Corvus. Since this was an unusually high galatic latitude for a nova, I tried to find confirming evidence for his 1931 observation. Although my results were negative for 1931, I did find nine additional outbursts in my search through several hundred Harvard patrol plates. I observed the variable, now called TV Corvi, in outburst for the first time visually on March 23, 1990, and several times since then.